Life or Death?

Genesis 3:20-24

Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.  The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.  And the Lord God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.  He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."  So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.  After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

The Lord God made garments for Adam and Eve. It raises the picture of God's hand outstretched to the people who were banished, all the while holding a free gift that would cover the evidence of their sin.  Adam and Eve were banished from The Garden.  God did not say that Adam and Eve were unwanted, nor did he say they were unwelcome, nor did he say in any way that he did not love them anymore. What he did say is that they were to be prevented from taking the fruit which would doom them to living forever in their current state.  Why is that?

There were at least two, but maybe only two mysterious trees of power in The Garden.  The one gave enlightenment regarding the discernment of evil and was forbidden.  The other gave eternal life.  Presuming only that the man and woman would eat of either tree soon enough, it is hard to imagine the entire Garden of Eden narrative lasted a long time. Sure, Adam had his job of naming the animals, but that was not necessarily completed before The Fall.  

Apparently God was going to allow only one tree to be chosen:  Life or Enlightenment with Death.  He had said they would die if they ate from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. He did not detail what would happen if they ate from the Tree of Life, other than living forever.  There are so far only a few indicators of what God's intended way of life for mankind was to be, but the presence of God among them and communication with him was part of it.